Introducing Turi Park Tue, 17 Apr 2012

International Art Centre welcomes a new artist to the gallery - Turi Park.

Turi Park was born in Canberra, Australia 1972 and is now based in Wellington. He is a contemporary painter excited by the rich history and natural inspiration of Aotearoa, New Zealand. A descendant of European New Zealand parents, Turi is able to trace his ancestry back to the English Lake District, the Orkney Islands of far northern Scotland, and a German missionary and French cooper who met on the Chatham Islands.

Turi is a Maori name, after the captain of the Aotea waka that sailed from Hawaiiki to begin Maori settlement in Taranaki, Aotearoa New Zealand. At age thirteen, on a school trip to the Ryoan-ji temple Kyoto, Japan Turi had a deja vu experience deciding there and then that he would become a visual artist. Tertiary training followed with the diploma of Visual Communication Design from Wellington Polytechnic. Graduation in 1993 was followed by extensive travel across Asia, Europe and the Central Americas and a stint working in London. On his return to New Zealand Turi established his own design consultancy, Native whilst pursing his own career as a painter. His work is held in New Zealand and international public and private collections.

Misty Spring Sunrise, Kakahi, King Country

This was the first of these paintings to emerge. A special one for me because this is the view that Peter McIntyre had from his other painting studio.I now work in his Wellington one.

The view is from the top of a river cliff, where the Whakapapa river, full of the snow melt from Ruapehu, and rain from it's watershed, has carved its way into the ground, on its journey to the coast as the Whanganui. The river now has taken the ground that the studio and house once stood on.

In this foreground flies a fantail, light and darting above the river - with it's news to give. Over the hills the light catches the mist, and then the solitary Kahikatea, in the first of the sun - Turi Park